ENB:12:11 [Next] . [Previous] . [Contents]

---

RULES OF PROCEDURE

Since the INC was unable to adopt the Rules of Procedure and send them to Berlin as a fait accompli, the COP will have a number of initial procedural hurdles to overcome before it can even discuss some of the important substantive issues. The three major outstanding issues are composition of the Bureau, voting procedures, and official languages. With regard to the first two, the oil producing developing States stood firm on language that would give them a seat on the Bureau and force all protocols to be adopted by consensus. These two amendments would, in effect, negate the AOSIS seat on the Bureau and ensure that the AOSIS draft protocol, as currently drafted, would have difficulty being adopted because it is unlikely to achieve consensus. For many observers, the inability to reach consensus on these rules raises suspicion that the sole purpose of some Parties' accession to the Convention was to play an obstructionist role. The challenge for Berlin is to ensure that there is swift agreement on these rules so that COP can begin to address the challenging issues related to climate change.